This is part of an ongoing series covering various college realignment news for all three NCAA Divisions as well as the NAIA. The roundup below will cover news and reports since April 30, 2026, and provide updates on previously discussed topics. As a reminder, all official moves starting with the 2025-26 academic year can be found here and those starting in 2026-27 are here. We’ll break out the reports for each Division in the following order: Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, and NAIA. Clicking the links will bring you to the corresponding section.
| School(s)/Conference | News Item |
|---|---|
| ACC | Football and Basketball Games to Air on The CW |
| ACC | Lacrosse AQ in the Future? |
| D1 Men’s Soccer | Season to be Played Over Both Semesters |
| Midway University | Football Joining MSFA |
| NAIA | NAIA President Talks about Membership |
| NCAA D1 Basketball | Expanding March Madness Tournaments |
| NCAA D2 | Possible New Conference? |
| Pac-12 | Not Expanding in Short Term |
| SCIAC | Women’s Water Polo AQ Bid at Risk |
| SIAC | Will Sponsor Flag Football |
| Simon Fraser | Accepted into Canada West |
| Southern Athletic Association | Media Rights Deal with FloSports |
NCAA Division 1 News
March Madness Tournaments Expanding
The men’s and women’s NCAA Division 1 basketball tournaments are officially expanding to 76 teams beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. The new format will see the opening round games played on Tuesday and Wednesday. The men’s bracket will have two opening round games with 11 seeds, four games with 12 seeds, two games with 15 seeds, and four games with 16 seeds battling for a place in the first round.
ACC Football and Basketball to be Broadcast on The CW, Lacrosse AQ Possible?
The CW Network and ESPN agreed to a sublicense deal that will allow some ACC football and basketball games to be shown on The CW. The CW Network will broadcast 14 ACC regular season football games, 30 men’s basketball games, and 10 women’s basketball games annually. The deal will run for five years from the 2026-27 academic year through the 2030-31 academic year.
In other ACC news, SMU is considering the addition of a varsity men’s lacrosse program. The Mustangs currently have a club lacrosse program that competes in the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) Division 1. The obstacle for SMU is Title IX, which would require a women’s sport to be added. The logical addition would be women’s lacrosse. Should it come to fruition, the ACC would regain its Automatic Qualification bid to the men’s NCAA lacrosse championship. The ACC saw all five of its programs make the 2026 lacrosse tournament as at-large teams, with four ranked in the top 8 seeds and four reaching the quarterfinals.
Men’s Soccer Likely to Move to Two-Semester Format
The NCAA Division 1 Men’s Soccer Oversight Committee adopted legislation that will see the sport played over the fall and spring semesters. The Division 1 Cabinet will review the proposal at its June meeting. Soccer is currently played in the fall semester, with the championship occurring in December. The NCAA will keep the maximum games at 25, but allow as many as 18 games in the fall and 10 in the spring. The fall season would conclude on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and start up again in mid-February. The NCAA soccer tournament would move to the spring. The proposal would also change the men’s soccer transfer portal from 45 days across two windows to a single 15-day window beginning the day after the national championship game in the spring.
Pac-12 Not Expanding For Now
The Pac-12 Conference will not expand in the near future, according to Jon Wilner. The Pac-12 will have 9 full members beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. All nine sponsor basketball, while eight will have football. The Pac-12 desires at least one more football-playing full member, but there are outside factors preventing it from happening. Wilner notes that media rights negotiations involving the NFL are likely to impact college football rights deals, including the Pac-12’s. The expansion of March Madness is another factor, as the conference won’t want to add a basketball program that will drag down the conference’s metrics. Finally, there’s the realignment shuffling expected at the start of the next decade, which could lead to a breakaway or significant reshaping of college athletics’ power conferences.
NCAA Division 2 News
New D2 Conference Possible?
The NCAA Division 2 Membership Committee discussed the minimum requirements for the formation of a new conference. The Committee wants to provide greater flexibility for any potential new conference by providing new application deadlines and applicant institution processes. It was noted that the automatic qualification waiting period for any new conference will remain at five years, meaning a new conference in the 2027-28 academic year would not be eligible for any automatic qualification bids to NCAA Championships until 2032-33. The Committee will review the feedback and the updated requirements at its July meeting.
In December 2024, a bill in Oklahoma proposed that the majority of NCAA D2 colleges and universities form a new conference. Currently, there are 11 NCAA D2 schools located in Oklahoma across three different conferences: Cameron (Lone Star), Central Oklahoma (MIAA), East Central (GAC), Northeastern State (MIAAA), Northwestern Oklahoma State (GAC), Oklahoma Baptist (GAC), Oklahoma Christian (Lone Star), Rogers State (MIAA), Southeastern Oklahoma State (GAC), Southern Nazarene (GAC), and Southwestern Oklahoma State (GAC).
In the never-ending world of realignment, there are 7 NAIA schools located in Oklahoma that could be used to help backfill any losses: Langston (Sooner), Mid-America Christian (Sooner), Oklahoma City (Sooner), Oklahoma Panhandle State (Sooner), Oklahoma Wesleyan (KCAC), University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (Sooner), and Southwestern Christian (Sooner). The usual caveats apply here: there’s no guarantee any of these schools would move up or even receive an invite in this hypothetical scenario.
SIAC to Sponsor Flag Football
The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) will sponsor women’s flag football beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. SIAC Commissioner Anthony Holloman stated that 10 teams are committed to playing and there will be a 12-game conference schedule concluding with a championship. Holloman did not confirm any of the teams that will compete.
Simon Fraser Joining Canada West
Simon Fraser University (British Columbia, Canada) is officially joining U Sports‘ Canada West as a provisional member beginning with the 2027-28 academic year. It was widely expected that the membership would be approved after the school announced its intention to leave the NCAA back in November 2025. The move is expected to save the school roughly $1 million annually. SFU was the NCAA’s only member located in Canada and will return to the conference it was a member of from 2000 through 2010.
NCAA Division 3 News
SAA Signs With FloSports
The Southern Athletic Association announced a media rights deal with FloSports beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. The SAA is the 11th NCAA Division 3 conference to join FloSports and the 20th NCAA conference across all divisions. The press release notes that the SAA is the 12th D3 conference to have an agreement with FloSports, but FloSports’ press release shows only 11 D3 conferences.
| NCAA D1 (1) | NCAA D2 (8) | NCAA D3 (11) |
|---|---|---|
| CAA | CCAA | American Southwest |
| East Coast | Landmark | |
| GLIAC | Little East | |
| G-MAC | NEWMAC | |
| Gulf South | Northwest | |
| Lone Star | ODAC | |
| Northeast-10 | Ohio Athletic | |
| South Atlantic | SAA | |
| SCAC | ||
| SCIAC | ||
| UAA |
SCIAC’s Water Polo AQ At Risk for 2027
The NCAA Women’s Water Polo Committee is recommending that the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) not receive an automatic qualification bid for the 2027 tournament. Currently, the SCIAC has the conference championship scheduled for the day after the selection show. Should the SCIAC, or any other conference, decline its AQ bid, that spot would not be filled by an at-large team. The Committee will reconsider the recommendation if the SCIAC changes the date of its championship to occur before the selection show.
NAIA News
Midway Football to Join MSFA
Midway University (Midway University) will transition its sprint football program to a full-fledged varsity program and join the Mid-States Football Association (MSFA) beginning with the 2027-28 academic year. Midway is now the third school in the last year to move its sprint football team to a full tackle squad, following Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (Indiana) in July 2025 and Calumet College of St. Joseph (Indiana) in April 2026. All three will join the MSFA, starting with SMWC in 2026. SMWC will effectively replace Siena Heights, which will close at the end of the current 2025-26 academic year. Calumet and Midway will join the MSFA in 2027-28 to give the conference 14 football members.
NAIA President Talks Membership and Possible New Conferences
NAIA President Jim Carr talked in a recent interview about the organization’s membership. Carr noted that the NAIA has discussed adding new conferences in the upper Midwest and Northeast, but it’s not imminent. There is no limit on the number of conferences the NAIA would like to have as membership grows, and there could be some realignment between conferences to distribute schools more evenly.
Carr spoke about a shift in how the organization identifies new members, working more closely with conferences to add schools instead of the NAIA choosing schools to add without fully considering the needs or strategic vision of the conferences. Carr stated that there is no shortage of potential new members from the NCAA Divisions 2 and 3, some NJCAA members, and a few unaffiliated schools. Carr stated that a couple of D2 schools will apply for NAIA membership in the next cycle.
Photo courtesy of NCAA / NCAA Photos